Adult learning is more than alternative education, self-help, self-study, or training. Self-directed inquiry can free you from the cultural traps of today’s postmodern world. When you think for yourself, you take control of your life. Intellectual ability and critical thinking soon become substitutes for paper credentials. Simply stated aggressive learning is the most practical guide to a passionately rewarding life.

Friday, January 13, 2017

America’s Celebration of Ignorance

If you care about future generations and
have reached an age when you realize the time you have remaining is short, perspective
about what is truly important has a way of surfacing with a resounding sense of
urgency. This is ironic because you realize at the same time just how little impact
you have for influencing future events.

I grew up in a racist culture in the 1940s
and 50s. Now in my eighth decade, I’ve spent more than thirty of those years writing
about how the process of self-education radically changed my worldview and made
me realize the utter immorality of bigotry and racism.

So, when I apply a big-picture perspective
to the current state of life in this country, it’s clear to me that a very large
percentage of our citizens are willfully ignorant and proud of the fact. A lot
has been learned during my lifetime about human behavior, and yet we do not
make good use of the knowledge we’ve gained.

Time and again, I go back to the writing
of cultural anthropologist Ernest Becker, who argued that leaving the subject
of human behavior to experts “leads to a general imbecility.” Does it ever. To
overstate the case would be difficult. I offer here three major concerns about
what we have failed to learn and bring to bear for the public good. They’re all
connected.

The first is about our identity, who we
think we are. Who we identify with is easily determined by who we believe
speaks for us, indeed, if anyone does. I’ve written ad nauseam about this
subject, but not many people seem to understand it, even those who are supposed
to be the experts. At least, if they do understand the fundamental nature of
political identity, they tend to keep it to themselves.

In a nutshell, we human beings are
tribalistic by nature. We evolved living in small groups, usually fewer than
300 people. We are so inclined to form these kinds of groups and so prone to
conformist behavior that we develop distinctive accents in different regions of
the country. We are so quick to group together that we readily adopt a
passionate allegiance to sports teams. We can enter a room, chose up team sides
by colors like blue and green, and in minutes begin to relate better to team
members wearing our colors.

While tribalism is a complicated subject,
my point here is simple: When it comes to politics, far too many of our
citizens let the party they identify with speak for them. They are not
knowledgeable enough to discuss major issues with any level of competence,
which is why so many political discussions become emotionally incoherent. Democracy
requires an informed citizenry and in fact cannot sustain itself without it.

The second concern is about values and the
fact that the things we need most in life are in fact devalued in our society.
The whole thrust of our economy depends upon our seeking and purchasing
products we don’t really need, goods that, once owned, fail to satisfy, and purchases
that often put our future at risk.

We can’t live without clean air, clean water,
food, shelter, healthcare, family, society, and physical labor. But we take
these things for granted, having created a mass of artificial needs that take
priority over the things critical to our survival and well-being. In the
meantime, we are degrading our air and depleting our water sources at an
alarming rate.

We have created a society in which the
things we need most are perilously undervalued, including our human labor,
which used to be thought of as virtuous. If we don’t figure out how to reprioritize
our economy, our children and grandchildren are going to pay a heavy price for
our indulgence and indifference.

My third concern is the imbecility so
apparent in law enforcement. Our criminal justice system is a planetary
disgrace. Having been a police officer myself in my younger days, and having
studied the psychology of human behavior for decades, I find it appalling that so
much of what has been learned is still an open secret.

If per chance you watched the documentary Making a Murderer, it will be obvious to
you how easy it is to get a person to make a false confession, especially a
person with low self-esteem and a low IQ. We’ve known this for decades. That
there are any law enforcement officers or prosecuting attorneys in the country who
aren’t fully familiar with this phenomenon is, in my view, unacceptable. The
war stories from the aging officers I knew as a police officer in the 1960s
would curl your hair. I was in uniform when the Miranda Rule went into effect,
and for many months we didn’t read people their rights because we thought doing
so was silly.

Human brains are literally bias organs,
and anyone whodoesn’t fully
understand this has no business in law enforcement. Moreover, people who wear a
badge and a gun experience an increase in testosterone, becoming alpha males
and females by nature of their positions. For some, the nature of their
experience will likely hook them on spiked adrenaline rushes, prompting them to
unconsciously escalate acts of confrontation for the sake of the added excitement.
I find it mind-bending that the issues above are not a standardpart of police behavioral
training.

These three concerns, of course, are only
a sampleof the problems we face,
but fully addressing them in public discourse could go a long way toward creatinga more equitable society, one that
would be much more like a democracy than the one we’re experiencing today.